Liberals have a lot of misconceptions about why and what conservatives think. For example, last week my wife, Luisa, attended a Tea Party (Freedom Works) conference in Washington, DC. On the last day of the conference, reporters from all the major news outlets were invited to ask participants questions.
Being a Hispanic immigrant, she was asked by a reporter what she thought of the new Arizona immigration law. Luisa said she was in favor of it. Shocked by her answer, the reporter asked in a very hostile tone, how she could be against “her people?” Luisa replied, “These people are criminals, they are not my people. My people are law abiding Americans.”
David Stockman, President Reagan’s first budget director and closet Liberal, wrote an op-ed recently saying that reducing taxes, i.e., supply side economics, will not increase revenues and spur the economy. Any knowledgeable person would check to see if Reagan’s tax rate reductions of over 50% in the early 1980’s were followed by increased government revenues. They were. Tax revenues almost doubled over the next 10 years along with the creation of over 20 million net new jobs. And he did this despite the Democrats controlling the House of Representatives during his entire 8 years in office and the Senate for 5 of those years.
One of the reasons that Liberals have so many misconceptions about conservatives is that their knowledge of history seems to begin when they get up in the morning. Tax rate cuts during the Harding, Coolidge, Kennedy, and Reagan administrations all resulted in increased revenues. Look it up.
Deficits are entirely caused by governments spending more than they bring in. They borrow from people who could otherwise use the money to expand their businesses and hire more people.
At the end of World War II, Liberal economists were demanding a huge stimulus package to absorb the 45% of our civilian labor supply that had been employed by government war spending. Government spending on war contracts went from $84 billion to $30 billion from 1945 to 1946 while most economic controls (rationing, price controls, etc) were revoked.
These same liberal economists forecast 35% unemployment if the government did not have a massive government stimulus spending program. Did the sky fall without government stimulus spending? No. Civilian employment grew by over 4 million between 1945 and 1947 as military industries converted back to civilian production with virtually no help from the government. Actually congress dismantled the majority of the “New Deal.”
If Hoover and FDR’s stimulus spending during the 1930’s and early 1940’s war effort had ended the Great Depression, how come winding it down did not cause another Depression? Liberals misunderstand Conservatives because they do not take the time to research to see if their opinions are backed by historical fact.
P.S. When you research with Google, Wikipedia, Snopes, etc. keep in mind these sites are run by leftist ideologues who are short on coherent hard data and facts and long on liberal spin opinions. Check for hard facts at places like www.askheritage.org or https://www.academia.org/.
James F. Davis is the president of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.
